Call Me Larry

by Eric Kraft

Overview

Peter Leroy recalls his childhood affection for the Larry Peters series of adventure books. As a boy, he entered the world of the books so completely that he went from wanting to be Larry Peters to believing, sometimes, that he was. As Larry, he relished the company of his wisecracking sister Lucy and his square-jawed and capable pal, Rocky King. Later, when he had become a grownup, circumstances led to his taking his place as the last in a line of pseudonymous authors of the series, so that, in a way, he really did become Larry Peters.

Length: novela, about 20,000 words

Product Details

BN ID:	2940012840202
Publisher:	The Babbington Press
Publication date:	07/05/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	76
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Eric Kraft grew up in Babylon, New York, on the South Shore of Long Island, where he was for a time co-owner and co-captain of a clam boat, which sank. He met or invented the character Peter Leroy while dozing over a German lesson during his first year at Harvard. The following year, he married his muse, Madeline Canning; they have two sons. After earning a Master’s Degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Kraft taught school in the Boston area for a while, moonlighting as a rock music critic for the Boston Phoenix. Since then, he has undertaken a variety of hackwork to support the Kraft ménage and the writing of the voluminous work of fiction that he calls The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. He has been the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; was, briefly, chairman of PEN New England; and has been awarded the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature.

Editorial Reviews

Eric Kraft has not only created a wonderfully touching and mythic childhood of the 1950s; he has also managed the difficult feat of fabricating brilliant parodies of many of the most sacrosanct monuments of American and world fiction. . . . Uproarious sendups of Twain, Proust, Melville, Shakespeare, and other writers that litter the pages of Peter Leroy like so many casual crash-and-burns on the roadway of world literature.

Cleveland Plain Dealer - John Stark Bellamy II

In one especially funny [novella], "Call Me Larry," Kraft mocks the very notion of serial books by relating the convoluted plotline of the Larry Peters books, an adventure series for teenagers featuring Larry, his shapely sister, his best friend, and his family's bric-a-brac business. All the plotlines center on sex and evildoers trying to get hold of next year's plans for bric-a-brac.

Boston Sunday Herald - Judith Rosen